president obama. he's holding the cards right now and if, in fact they do go over the cliff will he actually be true to what he said before, which is let's do this short-term deal now, even though it's really not a deal, it's a one-sided deal and then after get over the fiscal, then we'll sit down and actually talk some serious business. but has that really been done in the last three or four years? do you really believe that they will talk serious business, which would include both sides of the fence tax increase potentially, and spending cuts? do you believe that they'll actually do that? >> steve: you know what? charles krauthammer in his column today writes about once upon a time, ronald reagan took that deal where the democrats said okay, let's get a deal now and then we'll talk about cuts later. he never got the cuts and he always was remorseful of the fact that he didn't get the cuts when he made the deal. >> gretchen: the other stories making headlines fox news alert. there is a terrifying sit